Lou Manso was appalled when he discovered recently there is no longer an ambulance at the fire station in his Scripps Ranch neighborhood.

So Manso has started a campaign to get one there, and is calling attention to the fact that about half the city's fire stations don't house ambulances.

“That's just not acceptable,” said Manso, an advertising executive who has lived in Scripps Ranch for 13 years.

His city councilman, Brian Maienschein, is backing him, saying that Scripps Ranch is in a “unique position” to house an ambulance after about 300 homes there burned in the 2003 Cedar Fire.

“I think if that improves coverage for the entire region, I think that's money well spent,” Maienschein said.

The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department has 46 fire houses, but only 22 have ambulances.

Still, the department exceeds its goals for ambulance response times, officials said. That goal is to have an ambulance arrive within 12 minutes 90 percent of the time for serious cases. Also, the department dispatches a trained paramedic on each fire engine.

“The performance being provided is better than the city has had with any other contract providers,” said Rod Ballard, deputy fire chief for emergency medical services.

The department moved the Scripps Ranch ambulance to the Mira Mesa fire station in 2002 to improve coverage for the entire area.

According to Fire Department figures, overall ambulance response times in Scripps Ranch have lengthened since then, but not for life-threatening cases.

Fire stations lacking ambulances

San Diego has 46 fire stations, including one at Lindbergh Field. Of those, 22 house city ambulances. The following do not have ambulances:

Station 3 Midtown-Balboa Park
Station 4 East Village
Station 5 Hillcrest
Station 6 Otay Mesa
Station 7 Logan Heights
Station 8 Mission Hills
Station 10 College Area
Station 13 La Jolla
Station 14 North Park
Station 15 Ocean Beach
Station 16 La Jolla-Mount Soledad
Station 17 City Heights
Station 19 South Crest
Station 22 Point Loma
Station 23 Linda Vista
Station 25 Bay Park
Station 27 West Clairemont
Station 34 San Carlos
Station 35 University City
Station 37 Scripps Ranch
Station 42 Carmel Mountain Ranch
Station 43 Brown Field
Station 45 Mission Valley
Station 46 Santaluz

Today's average is just more than 9 minutes. Before 2002, that average was just under eight 8 minutes.

But for the most serious cases, the average response time has remained steady at 6 minutes and 39 or 40 seconds.

But Manso, who discovered the situation when his son's Boy Scout troop toured the Scripps Ranch station recently, said there's no way an ambulance parked four miles away can provide the same coverage as one sitting in the community.

“How can they defy physics and respond quicker with an ambulance 4.5 miles away?” he said.

Adding a new ambulance would cost $600,000 a year. That money is not in the department's budget, Ballard said.

Manso said he doesn't want to hear about not enough money. “When you have human life versus money, you just find it,” he said.

He has rallied his neighbors. About 50 people attended a meeting in Scripps Ranch last night with fire officials and Maienschein.

One Scripps Ranch woman told a tearful story about the drowning death of her toddler daughter less than two years ago. Erin Ferguson said a paramedic arrived quickly but couldn't help; her daughter needed to be transported to a hospital.

“The ambulance could have responded quicker,” Ferguson said. “By the time the ambulance got there, there was no chance.”

Another woman said she had to give first aid to a toddler scalded by hot coffee at a Scripps Ranch restaurant. Brooke Shields said the ambulance took 35 minutes to arrive.

“I plead with the powers that be in the city of San Diego to give our ambulance back to our growing community,” Shields said.

Residents also raised the concern that a large housing development is being built just across the city line in Poway. Because San Diego has an aid agreement with Poway, they said those residents might increase the need for ambulance service.